Crothian said:
So, what elements of plot do you enjoy?
I'm going to address this, since my position on the role of story hooks and whatnot in published material has already been covered by others.
What I like in a roleplaying game is stories about ideas. I like stories about ideas - even if it's as straightforward and simple as one being's idea of how something should be - and I like stories about people whose ideas are challenged. I tend to lean away from the traditional idea-stories of fantasy - the paladin whose faith is shaken, the elf and dwarf who learn that their races' dislike of each other is unimportant - not because they're bad, but because they're not as fresh as other ideas.
In Hong's Britannia campaign, for example, I have just finished playing - since he refused
resurrection last session - a character who has been struggling with the fact that the person (his wife) who gave him his purpose in life, who instilled him with a set of firm values and led him in developing the abilities that would allow him to defend those values against the forces opposing them, had betrayed those values and their shared mission, and that she was tricked into doing so.
Given that he had believed her to be a wiser, stronger, and more righteous person than himself, he could not come to terms with the implications of her fall for his own ability to remain righteous in the face of evil. Therefore, he became ever more self-righteous and distant from the situation - he took part in the quest to redeem her, but refused to acknowledge that it was for any reason other than because it was the right thing to do (while telling himself, at least, that it proved he was a better person than her after all).
The essential core of the story is that my PC believed in an idea not because he was truly committed to its principles, but because he admired (and loved) someone who he believed exemplified those ideals, and wanted to emulate and help her. It's the tragedy not of someone whose faith is questioned but of misplaced commitment - when she fell and he could no longer believe in her, he had to adopt a false and self-righteous commitment to the principles he'd only ever believed in for her sake, hewing to their letter while betraying their spirit as surely as she had.
I like stories about ideas, and people's relationship with them.